


The Passing of Time

by magickbeing



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-11
Updated: 2013-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-25 01:55:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magickbeing/pseuds/magickbeing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Ericandy's 30 Day OTP Challenge from Tumblr. </p><p>John Watson had stopped trying to see the city around him many months ago. Why? Because London had moved on without him. Time moved on without him. He tried chasing it once. He tried pushing himself from the ground and marching on like the good, brave little soldier everyone expected him to be. He had even caught it—and for a fleeting, single instant, he thought things would be okay, that he would be okay—but then he fell again, buried under its weight and unable to move. It wasn't until years later that time seemed to take pity, coming to a screeching halt to allow John a chance to heal, to relearn, and redo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Holding Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Theoretically, this will have 30 chapters. I'm a bit horrid at continuing challenges like this, though--as seen by the fact that I started this nearly a month ago. Yep. That.
> 
> That being said, I intend to make the chapters fit together... but the plot may not be as complicated or complex as I sometimes envision.
> 
> The prompt is in the chapter title.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, John stops just looking and sees. Time stops and he anchors himself to an old friend.

He looked out the window, watching the streets as they passed by in a blur of colored movement, his eyes lingering on the occasional brightly lit shop or flickering streetlight. He was looking but not really seeing. John Watson had stopped trying to see the city around him many months ago. Why? Because London had moved on without him. _Time_ moved on without him. He tried chasing it once. He tried pushing himself from the ground and marching on like the good, brave little soldier everyone expected him to be. He had even caught it—and for a fleeting, single instant, he thought things would be okay, that _he_ would be okay—but then he fell again, buried under its weight and unable to move.

John shifted, his head lulling back onto the seat, eyes turning to the opposing window.

His breath caught in his throat.

Finally, he saw.

There, across the road, walked a single, tall figure. His skin glowed under the streetlight, bundled under a brightly colored scarf and a long, black coat. John’s heart skipped a beat and the word pressed itself from his mouth, choked and strangled, before he could rethink it.

“ _Stop!”_

The driver slammed on the brakes and then John was tossing him a handful of crumpled notes from his pocket—the driver said something but John was hearing, not listening, and then he was out of the cab, its door hanging open.

“Sherlock!” he yelled, his eyes following the figure, the man that had almost rounded the street corner.

His feet carried him across the street and there was a loud, blaring noise of a horn as another cab swerved to miss him—he was running and time was betraying him and then he was there, the figure breaths away. The man had stilled just beyond the corner and John nearly ran into him. He turned, facing John, and blue eyes met blue.

John couldn’t breathe.

“You—“ his voice cracked and John’s eyes dropped to the asphalt. His vision blurred, the edges of the street darkening. _You’re dead._ The thought finished itself, silent and broken, and then turned into a mantra, a broken record in his mind. He reached out into the air, an attempt to catch something to steady himself, his legs threatening to give under time’s weight, and then Sherlock was directly in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulders and keeping his body upright. The ground beneath him lurched at the contact. Sherlock’s grip was firm, pulsating with a life he shouldn’t have, and despite the blurriness in his eyes, despite the confusion and darkness pressing in on him, John’s hand reeled back, his fist coming into contact with Sherlock’s jaw.

There was a sickening crack and Sherlock stumbled back, his touch retracting for but a moment before returning, bracing John before he fell to the pavement.

“You’re dead!” It was a yell, a guttural sort of scream, and he shook Sherlock’s hands from his body, taking a sloppy, shaking step away from the man. He steadied himself against the nearby building, slumping against its wall. Sherlock exhaled sharply, a hand moving to prod at the curve of his jaw. The skin was red and angry, more so because of the shadows that played against it, but he barely flinched as he said,“Obviously.”

John’s breathing was erratic, his chest raising and falling more so than usual as he tried to force the air in and out of his lungs. Anger boiled in his chest, wrapping itself around his heart and tightening its hold. His knuckles throbbed. “There’s a _grave,_ Sherlock—I watched you _jump._ ”

Pointless words—so pointless—but his thoughts were racing, trying desperately to connect this new knowledge with what was already in his mind. Sherlock exhaled sharply again, but it was more of a sigh than anything else, and his hand fell to his side.

“I know,” he said simply, shoving his hands into either coat pocket. His eyes were on John’s face, flitting across his features and memorizing the lines time had brought. John’s fingers curled into his palms, his nails digging into skin.

“You—it’s… it’s been three bloody years!”

Sherlock nodded once.

“I know,” he said again.

 _No,_ John thought, shaking his head. Sherlock _didn’t_ know. He was standing there, stiff as always, his face practically expressionless as he watched John _break._ Oh, no, he didn’t know _at all._ There was a dull throbbing behind either temple and John’s eyes burned, turning glossy. Through his anger was sadness and he blinked rapidly, trying to keep the tears at bay. Sherlock was incapable of caring. He had said it before. He was cold-hearted, apathetic… a sociopath.

“I—“ his voice cracked but he forced himself to keep talking, “I’ve _waited_ for _three_ fucking years.”

“I know,” replied Sherlock.

A piece of him broke and John yelled, “IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DON’T KNOW?”

“Yes.”

The word was so quiet, so breathless that for a long moment, John simply stared, wondering if his ears deceived him. His chin trembled when he spoke, his voice considerably softer than before, the confusion apparent in its single syllable reply: “…what?”

Sherlock kept his eyes on John’s.

“I don’t know how to fix this,” he answered. Each word softer than the last. “You. Me. Us.”

John scoffed, rolling his tongue against the inside of his bottom lip. He averted his eyes and shook his head, saying, “Maybe you should have thought about that.”

The corners of Sherlock’s mouth twitched.

“I know.”

John forced himself to swallow, his mouth twisted into a pained scowl. The burning in his eyes increased.

“Stop,” he demanded, his eyes pivoting back to Sherlock’s. “Stop saying that.” He searched Sherlock’s face and the words were angry but whole. “You _don’t_ know. You _don’t_ know about my nightmares—how often I screamed out your name in the middle of the night—how broken I am…” he stopped, trailing off, and then his voice was soft again. “A suicide kills two people. Did you know that, Sherlock? Did you even _think_ about that—about what it would do to me?” Sherlock’s expression was unreadable and John pushed off of the wall. He threw his hands up in the air and Sherlock glanced at them for but a moment, tensing as if he expected to be hit again, before his eyes returned to John’s. Tears fell down his face, slipping hot and unwanted over his eyelashes, his body betraying him. “No, of course not. Of _course_ you didn’t. You’re so _bloody_ selfish, Sherlock. You’ve _always_ got to be the smartest man in the room—you’ve _always_ got to do things your way. Why… why couldn’t you just _tell me?_ Why did you have to wait three bloody, God-forsaken years?!”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.

“Selfish?” he repeated, the word quiet but hard. “I valued your life over my own, John. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t deserve it—but I did what I _had_ to do.”

John’s legs were shaking but he refused to back down, refused to show Sherlock more weakness than he already had. He didn’t deserve to see John so broken.

“Bullocks,” he hissed, sniffing loudly. “You did what you _wanted_ to do.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and John thought he might punch him again, but the words that came kept his hand firmly at his side: “There were three snipers; one for Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson and, of course, _you._ There was no other way—they would have killed you. Your death would have been _very_ real, John, and all because of one foolish, fatal, _selfish_ error—I cared. You were going to _die_ because I _cared_ about you.”

He swallowed thickly, struggling to process the information.

“Care _d_?” he asked faintly. Maybe he wasn’t so cold-hearted—or was this a trick? Was that why so much time had passed? Was that why three years had gone by and Sherlock had been alive but silent? _Cared._ Past tense. John had waited for him, had believed in him—always—he had cared more about a dead man than those living, and Sherlock had just _stopped._ He had care _d._ Knowing that Sherlock had cared _once,_ and then stopped, was worse than thinking he had never cared to begin with. His stomach twisted and he thought he might be sick.

“ _Care,_ ” Sherlock corrected. He searched John’s face. “Surely you know that.”

John felt a bit of his anger deflate but the nausea didn’t dissipate.

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Sherlock, inclining his head slightly.

John licked his lips, unable to add two and two together to equal four—why had three years passed, then? How long had Sherlock been in London, right under his nose? He struggled to find his voice, the tears causing it to sound choked. “What were you doing, then? For these past three years—what was _so_ important that you couldn’t come home?”

“Dismantling Moriarty’s network,” Sherlock answered easily.

“Dismantling?” John repeated, his eyes flitting across Sherlock’s face. He was infuriatingly impassive.

Sherlock nodded.

“I needed to disable the threat.”

“Oh.” His eyes narrowed slightly and then widened, his eyebrows raising at the realization. “ _Oh_.”

“Nothing I’m proud of, I assure you,” Sherlock replied, clearing his throat.

John nodded and another question pressed itself from his mouth: “Why here? Why did I have to see you _here,_ on some random street in the center of London?”

It was Sherlock that broke their eye contact then, his eyes dropping to the ground. “I… didn’t know,” he mumbled, his certainty disappearing before John’s eyes. He shuffled his feet a bit against the asphalt, scuffing his shoes. “I didn’t know how to come home—if you’d even want me to.” His eyes flicked up and, despite the height distance, Sherlock was looking at him through his eyelashes.

John swallowed, his brow creasing at its center. That was it, then. John had been wrong. Sherlock wasn’t a machine—he wasn’t cold-hearted at all. He was simply frightened. Unsure. Vulnerable, much like John was. He nearly laughed, scoffing as his mouth turned into a slight, though pained, smile.

“Of course I wanted you to, you git. How didn’t you know that?”

“Because I’m an idiot?” Sherlock offered quietly, appearing to brighten again at the reassurance, if only a bit.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You’re an idiot. Biggest one I know. Bigger than Anderson, even.” As he was talking, John had stepped forward, nearing Sherlock so that they were breaths away. If Sherlock was bothered by his words, he kept it well hidden, and then John’s hands found Sherlock’s. He needed to be certain that he was there, _really_ there, and not a simple figment of his imagination. He leaned forward, his forehead resting against Sherlock’s shoulder, his eyes on their intertwined hands. “Sherlock?” he asked, swallowing thickly, blinking a few more tears from his eyes.

“Yes?” Sherlock asked, his thumb brushing across John’s knuckles. John gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t ever care about me again, yeah?” he murmured.

Sherlock dipped his face down, his mouth against John’s hair as he replied, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”


	2. Cuddling Somewhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John struggles to remember that Sherlock is alive—not dead—and real. Time moves forward, despite his struggle. After a particularly bad nightmare, he struggles to keep his hold on sanity and needs to ground himself with a warm body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theoretically, this will have 30 chapters. I'm a bit horrid at continuing challenges like this, though--as seen by the fact that I started this nearly a month ago. Yep. That.
> 
> That being said, I intend to make the chapters fit together... but the plot may not be as complicated or complex as I sometimes envision.
> 
> The prompt is in the chapter title.

A soft, flickering light filtered through his window from the streets, casting his room in honey colored shadows. He pressed his knuckles to his mouth, flipping over and curling into himself. John blinked into his surroundings—every time the darkness of his eyelids descended, he saw bloodied asphalt and a body too still. He bit his knuckles and forced out a slow, uneven breath, his shoulders shaking with its force. There was no truth in his nightmare. Sherlock lived. He had _returned._ He was in London, kept up in a nearby hotel room, working his way back into John’s life as quickly and steadily as he could. He had yet to move back into their flat. They were dancing with one another—a silent, teasing waltz, as if John’s hold on reality hung in the air.

It was pointless, to say the least. All of his things were there. John had never been able to rid himself of them. He had been anchored to the past, unable to follow time’s beat. He could move in any day and yet John refused to let him. He didn’t know why. Maybe he was trying to punish Sherlock. Again. Still. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a broken sob, trying desperately to picture Sherlock how he was, then, alive and pulsating, blue eyes and pale, glowing skin.

There was a weight against his chest and he could barely breathe.

His hands searched his bed, slipping under his pillow, and then they gripped his phone too tightly, its screen illuminating under his touch. He sent the message before he could doubt himself.

_Come home. I need you. JW_

No one replied and he could feel his lungs tightening, twisting in his chest, beating themselves against his ribs and robbing him of the air he so desperately needed. What if Sherlock _was_ dead? What if he was mad—just mad? What if his dreams were his sanity? He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, his nails digging into his forehead, and then he was kicking, thrashing against the duvet tangled around his legs. He needed to escape.

Sherlock didn’t reply because _Sherlock was dead_ and John was _mad_ and there was nothing, _nothing,_ that could change the truth—no hallucination or delusion that could make him better, that could make him whole and unbroken and _alive._ John darted up in bed, drawing his knees to his chest. His hands moved across his temples and into shortly cropped hair, pulling and clawing, and he was only vaguely aware of the door bursting open.

His entire body stiffened.

“John,” Sherlock breathed, rushing forward.

There was a weight beside him on the bed.

John’s fingers pressed into his scalp and the darkness behind his eyelids intensified. He wasn’t breathing.

He wasn’t awake.

He couldn’t be.

Because Sherlock was dead.

_Sherlock was dead._

John’s heart struggled against itself in his chest, twisting and writhing much like his lungs, its beat quick and erratic. And then there were two hands against his shoulders and John startled, pushing himself away and toward the wall, frenzied eyes glinting in the light as he looked to the intruder. _As he looked to his hallucination._

“Sh-Sh—er—“

“It’s me, John,” Sherlock assured, moving closer, his touch returning.

John let out a hard, shaking breath, his shoulder blades digging into the wall.

“N-no, y-you’re—“

Sherlock pursed his lips together, his mouth drawn into a thin line as he interrupted, “Don’t speak, you dolt; breathe.”

His hands found John’s, his touch warm, firm and somehow gentle, pulling John’s hands away from his face. John tried to struggle but Sherlock’s hands tightened, their fingers intertwining, and as John searched his face, a bit of the disorientation from his nightmare disappeared. The burning in his chest increased.

“You know how it works,” Sherlock murmured, his voice soft but commanding. “Deep breath. Focus. Inhale slowly, deeply— _focus,_ John.”

John shook his head.

“No. You can do this. _Breathe—_ please, for me?”

Their eyes caught and John forced himself to suck in another uneven, gasping breath, more of a whimper than anything else. Tears ran, hot and unwanted, across his face. He ignored the sensation and tried focusing on the man in front of him. _Sherlock._ Sherlock was alive. He was safe. And he was there, and maybe John wasn’t so broken after all. _Sherlock._ His thoughts repeated his name, turning it into a silent, comforting mantra, and John tried to time his breathing with its beat.

The room brightened and his lungs expanded.

“There we go,” Sherlock muttered approvingly, the slightest of smiles pulling at his mouth. “Breathe. Good. Focus. You’re okay.”

John shook his head.

No. He wasn’t okay. Not really. And they both knew it.

He was only vaguely aware of Sherlock’s fingers against his wrist, monitoring his pulse, his skin warm and soft. John shifted, moving away from the wall and closer to Sherlock. At some point in his break down, Sherlock’s body had ended up half-sprawled across his mattress, his abdomen hovering above John’s own. John untangled his hands and wrapped his arms around the other, pulling him close. His face heated at the contact but he ignored it. He needed to make sure Sherlock was real. He needed to make sure he was there, really there—he needed Sherlock to anchor him to this reality, to keep him firmly out of the realm of his nightmares.

Albeit hesitantly, Sherlock’s arms wrapped around him in turn, and John shifted, pulling him down onto the bed.

“Stay,” he said simply, the word muffled against Sherlock’s shoulder.

Sherlock said nothing but then there was movement as he blindly kicked off his shoes, his legs moving to rest beside John’s. John quickly tangled their limbs together, and then Sherlock was shifting as well, his arm slipping beneath the curve of John’s neck, pillowing his head. He closed his eyes, pressing his face against the flat of Sherlock’s shoulder, near his collarbone, and breathed in deeply, inhaling his warmth and scent.

“Stay,” he repeated.

He could feel Sherlock nodding and his reply was soft, muffled in its own way: “Always.”


End file.
